Bahrain’s Works Ministry has received proposals from six groups for the consultancy contract for the planned expansion of the Tubli sewage treatment plant (STP).

The lowest bid for the deal was submitted by a consortium of Kuwait’s Abdul Aziz al-Saqabi Consulting, Egyptian Group for Engineering Consultants (EGEC) and the local Ansari Engineering Services. The low bidder submitted a price of BD1.88m ($4.98m).

A consortium of Kuwait’s Adel al-Obaid Engineering Consultants, the UAE’s Sogreah Gulf Artelia Group and the local Al-Zayani Designers & Consultants submitted the second-lowest bid of BD1.97m.

A team of Kuwait’s Pace and UK/Dutch Hyder Consulting submitted the third-lowest bid of BD2.04m. The third-lowest bid of BD2.09m was submitted by Kuwait’s KEO International and Germany’s P2M Berlin.

MEED reported in February that the Works Ministry had received further technical clarifications from bidders for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Tubli project on 29 January.

The ministry received proposals from five bidders on 17 August 2016 for the EPC deal. MEED reported in January that bidders had been invited to submit further technical clarifications for the scheme, having sought initial clarifications in November.

The project has faced a number of delays in the prequalification and bidding stages. MEED reported in May 2015 that 10 groups had been prequalified to participate in the tender. The authority had received prequalification documents from 25 groups in January 2014.

The scheme is being funded by the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, so prequalification was restricted to:

• Kuwaiti contractors
• Kuwaiti / Bahraini joint ventures
• Kuwaiti / foreign joint ventures or consortiums
• Saudi contractors
• Saudi / Bahraini joint ventures
• Saudi / foreign joint ventures or consortiums

The project is part of Bahrain’s efforts to expand and upgrade its wastewater treatment plants and networks, which are currently operating above capacity.